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Oregon-based designer Erdem Selek has turned the everyday screwdriver into a desktop ornament with the PlusMinus tool set, which he will showcase at Milan design week.

PlusMinus is a minimalist take on the traditional screwdriver, with a ping-pong-bat shape devised to fit the hand. The designer intends it to be kept out on display rather than tidied away into a toolbox.

"The object questions the affordances of screwdrivers and tries to find a form that is intuitive and visually in tune with our living spaces" said Selek.

The paddle-shaped, polished stainless steel handles taper into Phillips #2 and 3/16-inch flat-bladed screwdrivers. Plus and minus signs are engraved into the handles to encourage the user to "instinctively unscrew or screw".

Selek is also behind the Corrugated Ruler, designed to help "distracting" offices become places of concentration. The ridged surface lacks the usual lines and numbers of conventional stationery, instead featuring smooth concave or convex ripples – which double as centimetre-long measures.

While they are not being used, Selek's designs cease to be functional objects and instead "turn our work environments into more harmonious and visually silent spaces". The designer was born and raised in Turkey but now works in the US.

PlusMinus will be exhibited at the upcoming Salone del Mobile in Milan, which runs from 4 to 9 April 2017. It will be displayed alongside other works by Selek, including Priz, a monochromatic extension cord, and Nordic Time, a loopless and buckleless silicone watch.

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Don't know where to start. How about "with a ping-pong-bat shape devised to fit the hand" – that's not the end of the bat you hold! Then, the + and - symbols; if you need those to know which direction to screw and unscrew, you've led a very sheltered life. Like the corrugated ruler, pretty, and pretty useless.

Thomas

Doh! The + and - is there to easily see what kind of head it is. Not which way to screw. You really didn't get that?

Geofbob

You may be correct, but that is not what the text says: "Plus and minus signs are engraved into the handles to encourage the user to 'instinctively unscrew or screw.'"

Honestly, I thought the plus and minus engravings were to mark whether it's a Phillips or a flat one on a glance (still would be a bit superfluous, I admit).

Marking the screw-unscrew rotation direction is quite pointless and can be downright counter-intuitive if one has to deal with a left-threaded screw ;)

XE

No matter the + - signs are to indicate the direction or the type of the tip, they just add noise to the design. Only two directions you can turn it and most people know which one to turn. Besides, if you can read the sign, you can just look into the tip.

It only makes sense when there's a set to collect that you can't see the tip, but I didn't see it here or at the designer's website.

Ben Catchpole

Lefty loosey, righty tighty.

doesil

They look good but not designed by anybody who has used a screwdriver. Screwdrivers are the shape they are as no one has improved the design since screws were first used.